Going back to 4th

[ripath]

A few friends and I have decided after a very long hiatus from 40k to play the edition we enjoyed the most, 4th ed. We still have all the old codexes/rulebooks and would be playing in a beer and pretzels environment. We are all re reading said rules but something I wanted to ask is if anyone remembers any weird rules to watch out for in 4th that may not be completely spelled out in the big rule book of that era.

[Morticon]

Out of sheer curiosity, and not to make it a debate in any way, what was your draw to 4th over 5th or 6th for that matter?

[ripath]

Out of sheer curiosity, and not to make it a debate in any way, what was your draw to 4th over 5th or 6th for that matter?

tbh I don't even think its the rules. 4th ed was when we all started playing and the group dynamic at the time was much more mutual. When one of us got a big new shiny model the rest were happy. Hell a lot of the time we helped build and paint the new tank that would soon be tearing up the battlefield. Monday night was group paint night. and Saturday was game day,  it was rare one of us missed one of those let alone both.

 

5th ed near the beginning wasn't bad. As every player got a new codex it became more about getting your new toys then just enjoying a game with friends. Most of us went to painting/assembling on our own. Add in that this is where life was picking up for most people didn't help much either. By 6th ed most of us had moved on to other things, and a new group of players became the core group at the local gaming store.

 

So nostalgia I geuss? Most of us want to have another piece of the glory days when we were role playing not roll playing.

[Cap'm Heckus]

No fliers, no D-weapons, no knights, no formations, no mortal wound spam. Just dudes fighting dudes. I bet it’ll be glorious.

 

I think 5th was when the game got less fun for me personally. It went from “i’m Going to bring what I have and it’ll be a fun and relatively fair match” to “oh, he brought three fliers, if I don’t have the counter to that it’s going to be ridiculously one sided and pointless”.

 

At least in my experience. Simpler times.

[toaae]

No fliers, no D-weapons, no knights, no formations, no mortal wound spam. Just dudes fighting dudes. I bet it’ll be glorious.

 

I think 5th was when the game got less fun for me personally. It went from “i’m Going to bring what I have and it’ll be a fun and relatively fair match” to “oh, he brought three fliers, if I don’t have the counter to that it’s going to be ridiculously one sided and pointless”.

 

At least in my experience. Simpler times.

 

The first flyers were introduced in 5th (the Stormraven and the Necron flyers) but there weren't any flying rules, so they were just Fast Skimmers. 6th introduced Flyer rules into the base game.

 

I've got nothing to say on topic. 4th was a solid enough edition, though I do remember 5th introducing Universal Special Rules. So I suppose I would just suggest to not assume similarly named rules are the same.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

The first flyer rules I know of actually date back to 3rd edition and were introduced in Forgeworld's Imperial Armor Imperial Vehicles for Warhammer 40k. Copyright 2000, rules can be found on page 70.

 

On the actual topic, I say play the rules you and your group find the most fun. All that matters is that you and your friends have a good time. Unfortunately I only played a few games in 4th edition and can't really be of help.

[mughi3]

Welcome back my friend

 

I do remember 4th oh so well, 5th is actually my favorite edition but 4th had some things that were better than 5th. our group plays a modified 5th that uses all the best rules we agreed on from all editions from 3rd-7th.

 

So here are the good and bad of 4th

 

The good-

.defensive weapons at strength 5-you can move and fire heavy weapons as per the normal rules stationary-all/combat speed(6") 1 main and all defensive weapons/flank(6"-12") no weapons barring fast vehicles(they treat 6" as stationary and flank as combat speed) and vehicles with POTMS(which marines can buy and put on all vehicles in 4th as an upgrade)

 

.Vehicle assault rules-tactical tradeoff for shooting VS surviving(this is a no brainer rule we still use)-

 

when being assaulted you only hit facing armor value-if the vehicle was stationary the previous turn-auto hit/moved up to 6" only hit on 4+/moved over 6" only hit on 6+

 

.General movement-remember no pre-measuring that's gonna be hard to remember

-all infantry and walkers-6" assault range 6" (you only roll distance on 2d6 and take the highest when assaulting through terrain-characters and MCs get 3d6)

 

-all jump units 12" move 6" assault jumping into or out of terrain force a terrain check-taking wounds on rolls of 1

 

-all beast and cavalry-6" move 12" assault

 

.psyker tests- done on leadership and cast during the phase they need to be used in. abilities can only be negated by psychic hoods or special wargear. the effects are table wide(5th reduced hoods to 24")

 

 

The bad-

skimmers-all skimmers can only every be glanced meaning they can only be destroyed on a glance 6(immobilized result) as they ALWAYS count as moving over 6" unless immobilized, more specifically the tau and elder have vehicle upgrades allowing them to negate glancing 6s

 

 

Side notes-

both flyer rules and anti-air units existed as FW only items(tau skyray and elder firestorm for example). the flyer rules were a bit odd as they moved onto the table in an attack run(pick a direction and distance moved then place) and did their attacks at the end of your opponents movement phase. they can only be hit on 6+ unless you have an anti air unit that hits on BS, they have a 12" flying high penalty to the range of units shooting at it. they can only be assaulted by jump troops.

 

immobilized results cause them to crash-all aircraft had the optional upgrades-armored cockpits (works like extra armor so they can still move when shaken), flare & chaff launchers(force re-roll of immobilize results)

 

All flyers except for the thunderhawk were armor 10/10/10.

 

 

Those are the highlights, be sure to let us know how things go, I expect a battle report like mine form 5th edition

[Varizel]

Ahhh 4th edition, the best edition for dudes vs dudes combat.... a short list of USR.... and that awesome dark millenium section of the rulebook where they showed you how to make kill team, decorate it with war trophies, making terrains (What happened GW? this is how you should make a hobby section of the rulebook... it all went down hill since 5th edition). Not only that... that's the edition where Assault Marines & Jump Pack Chaplain was common place combination and gatorade bottles as drop pods. All fun and games before Eldar 4th pops up with their holo Falcon taxies.... ahem... but i digress...

 

The rules that might be a bit fuzzy if i remember correcly (it was what? 10+ years ago?) , was casualties removal. for melee combat it only amounts to 2 inch i believe from the model hitting? and for shooting it was for the range of the weapon firing, so when you are rapid firing it was models 12 inches away from the firer can be taken as casualties. 

 

Also don't forget to specify what lvl of area terrain all your terrain pieces are and also their "access point" (doors on ruins... models can't walk through walls on 4th sides Necron Wraiths) if i remember correcly. And remember you can't see through area terrains unless your model is higher than the area terrain level.

 

I hope you have fun with your game.

[mughi3]

yeah I forgot to mention the size category and area terrain rules. although I do like the fact they got rid of range from weapon mounts on vehicles the hull was counted as its base and range was measured from the hull as long as LOS is made from the weapon mount. they did it to counter kitbashing that gave extra range for overly long weapons. it had the nice side effect of allowing modeling for aesthetic VS modeling for performance.

 

I love the kill team and combat patrol rules from the 4th ed rulebook, we still use them for kill teams today in our group. I managed to get ahold of the campaign rules for wounds and experience progression for kill teams and it makes it even better.

[Wulf Vengis]

One of the worst rules ever added to 40k (i think was 4th ed) was the unit that lost combat then passed morale took additional wounds equal to the number they'd lost by.

I can't tell you how many times I'd lose combat then pass morale only to have the unit wiped out because of free wounds.

I more or less skipped 4th until the very end because of this and a lack of players willing to play for fun and not competitively.

 

My return at the end of 4th wss brought on by a friend buying a ridiculous second-hand Tyranid army after years of trying to get him to even play the game.

[Varizel]

One of the worst rules ever added to 40k (i think was 4th ed) was the unit that lost combat then passed morale took additional wounds equal to the number they'd lost by.

I can't tell you how many times I'd lose combat then pass morale only to have the unit wiped out because of free wounds.

I more or less skipped 4th until the very end because of this and a lack of players willing to play for fun and not competitively.

 

My return at the end of 4th wss brought on by a friend buying a ridiculous second-hand Tyranid army after years of trying to get him to even play the game.

 

I think that was 5th? dun remember, but 4th Morale check for shooting is 25% of original squad member? with modifier on 50? While on melee it was when they lose they do morale check with modifiers too with 50% loss or outnumbered (Monstrous Creature and Dreadnought count as 10 normal infantries for counting outnumbering). That's why the numbers for tact marines back then are like 6 people..... at least from what i remembered.

 

EDIT:: ahhh nvm, i just talked to my mate, it was indeed losing a model on 4th for Fearless unit if you are outnumbered 2:1 if not more AND you can still take armor save for this. The one that takes casualties off by the number you lost are 5th ed, if you're Fearless... and you can still take armor save. So... yeah it's prob 5th the one you remembered. I don't have those rulebooks at hand so i can't confirm :D. He did say the rules for both are called No Retreat!

[mughi3]

yeah that's why we use 3rd/7th ed fearless in our 5th ed hybrid rules- it was just dumb in 5th in CC

 

 

P.S. lol I was just thinking maybe we need to rename this the "previous edition nostalgia thread"

[Wulf Vengis]

We've had a lot of those over the years.

 

I remember in 3rd how the game was so "barebones" my friends and i had a notebook filled with house rules. These had us playing an interesting preview of pieces of what each of the following editions would eventually bring.

[Trevak Dal]

Man if I could play 7th edition with 8th edition Khorne berserker statlines and points costs, and with Tau crisis suits statlines but 7th point costs...

[Wulf Vengis]

You can. In your own friendly environment.

[mughi3]

trevsk 3rd through 7th are fully compatible 8th however is such a different game it would be difficult to mesh them, try 3rd ed khorne berserkers, I think you would like them better-

 

I don't have the book in front of me right now it belongs to a friend but as I recall it is something like this-

 

mark of khorne-blood frenzy +1 attack-plus the following

restrictions-must use the chaos number in 4s - IE 8 man squad, can't use/join with any other chaos units with marks of the other gods

 

.on a 3+ the berserker units with the mark move a d6 + their normal 6" move towards the enemy and then can run an additional d6 and must do so towards the nearest enemy. they must assault if they can.

 

.chain axes of khorne upgrade-for a small points upgrade all berserkers can exchange their chainsword for a khorne chainaxe-it reduces all 2+ and 3+ saves to a 4+

 

.spiky bits-all chaos marines can take these as an upgrade allowing each model to re-roll 1 failed wound roll in CC

 

.khorne vehicles can take CC upgrades in the form of blades and saws

 

you can also custom make your own HQs- one favorite build for khorne- was a demon prince with srtificer armor, icon of khorne(2+4++), collar of khorne(immune to psyker powers but also cannot use them) demonic speed(jump pack)/or a bike, demonic strength(hits as a monsterous creature so AP2 in CC and 2d6 + strength for armor pen), dread axe-the axe ignores invul saves(made to fight minions of tzeentch) and becsuse you have AP 2 CC no saves can be taken against it.

 

I had one of these eat one of my 10 man deathwing squads in one turn.

[Wulf Vengis]

*sniff* I love that unit. *Sniff*

 

Personally chaos was never the same after the 3.5 Codex.

 

They're getting there now however...

 

Edit: The only cheesy thing in that whole Codex imho was that chaos lord/demon prince on a damned motorcycle. AARRRGGG!

[Slave to Darkness]

 

Edit: The only cheesy thing in that whole Codex imho was that chaos lord/demon prince on a damned motorcycle. AARRRGGG!

Ahh Doomrider, I still have him somewhere. 

[Wulf Vengis]

Doomrider was awesome fun i don't care how much the actual chaos payers hated him. I loved that drug fueled biker maniac.

[Legionnaire of the VIIth]

Talking about drug fueled bikers I miss my 3rd edition Archon on Reaver Jetbike with drugs.

[Slave to Darkness]

Doomrider was awesome fun i don't care how much the actual chaos payers hated him. I loved that drug fueled biker maniac.

The sculpt was a bit wonky but thats part of the charm, tbh I might buy some chaos bikers just so I can use him as the Champion and get him back on the table again. 

 

I DO WARPDUST KU KU KU YEAHHHHHH!!!!

[Wulf Vengis]

Yes! Or....kitbash a new one...

Damn I wish i could just drop money on this when i come up with an idea. A chaos lord on a bike with some legion of the damned bits and ghost rider head.

 

Or convert a bike and primaris to match/fit. Still a flaming ghost rider head.

 

More on topic however, i would be willing to participate in rules building discussion for this project... If anyone were willing?

[ripath]

Well I had my first 4th ed game Thursday but just got home after a vacation with the family. we played 500 points on a 4x4. Grey knights vs khorne flavor CSM, And I won because todd stood at the back of the field and let me stormbolter his squads in half and take the charge from him. We must be really rusty if the khorne player forgets to play aggressive. The biggest rule hang up was no pre measuring distances. but we will get there/

 

Also if anyone is vacationing in Green bay the national train museum is pretty fun.